college clip: pizza and cookies in a community kitchen

My residence hall at school doesn’t have a kitchen, so nearly all the cooking I do takes place in my dorm room with a rice cooker (see here, here, and here). However, a friend of mine does have community kitchen access, so we cook there together from time to time.

This weekend, I wanted to try a new pizza dough recipe, and she wanted to make cookies. She got the cookie ingredients, I got pizza stuff, and we set to work!

Here’s how it went: We were lucky to snag some greens from the greenhouse behind her dorm. We could not access the kitchen with the stand mixer and multiple baking sheets, so old pots were our stand-in mixing bowls and some of our cookies were baked in a mini cupcake tray. The first batch of cookies was a little too oily, so we added more flour, and the next ones were perfect. The pizza toppings we used came from the salad bar at the cafeteria, and we did Daiya-stuffed crust, which, needless to say, was amazing. Our food turned out great.

None of the recipes we made were totally original, but here is the link to the dough recipe I used (and loved), and here is how I veganized the basic Toll House cookie recipe:

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Using less flour will yield flatter, crisper cookies that spread more but may be a little oily. Using more flour will result in thicker, chewier cookies, and the flour in this recipe can be increased up to 3 cups if desired.

Combine the cornstarch and water in another small bowl with a fork or whisk until fully combined.

Mix butter in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or in a bowl with a whisk) until creamy. Add the sugars and vanilla extract, and continue to mix. Then, add half the cornstarch/water mixture (which may need another quick stir), and combine. Add the remaining cornstarch/water and mix, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture, and combine (switch to a spatula at this point if you are mixing by hand). Then add about half of what is left, and combine that too. Scrape the sides of the bowl, and mix in the remaining flour mixture.

Drop 1 tablespoon mounds of cookie dough 2 inches apart on a baking sheet (you should be able to fit 12 or 15 depending on the size of your tray), and bake for 9-12 minutes until just starting to brown (check that bottoms are brown/cooked if unsure). These will be very soft right out of the oven, but they will firm up a lot after cooling. Enjoy your vegan treats!!